


Crashing

by egosoffire



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Coping, F/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 14:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16874727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egosoffire/pseuds/egosoffire
Summary: Bucky's recovery is difficult on Natasha and Clint, who both know what it's like to lose yourself.





	Crashing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IgnisAlis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IgnisAlis/gifts).



> A sweet little ace fic for IgnisAlis, written for Marvel Trumps hate.

Clint has a certain set of skills when it comes to Natasha. One of those skills is that he can always tell when she’s about to crash. Usually, this knowledge is a blessing, because what he knows means he can help the one person who means the world to him. This time, however, that blessing comes with a curse, because it’s difficult to pick up these pieces, pieces he feels exist within himself as well.

“He had a terrible day, and I was there,” she admits, after a long silence. She’s sitting on the end of their bed, staring at the wall, and there’s no question who  _ he  _ is referencing.

Bucky.

“What were you doing over there?” he asks. He joins her on the bed, but he does not touch her. Being an expert in all things Natasha, Clint knows she doesn’t like to be touched, unless she’s the one initiating the touch. He sits with a reasonable distance between them.

“Well, he lives with Steve now. I needed to check in with Steve and…”

Her words trail off. She shakes her head.

She reaches her hand out, the symbolic offering, and Clint takes hold happily. “He crumbled to the floor,” she sighs, not giving eye contact, but instead staring hard at the floor. “Steve was there in an instant and tried to help, but how he was breathing… The way he lost sight of where he was…”

Even though he doesn’t like to cause discomfort, he gets off the bed and kneels near her, looking into her eyes. He nods. They both understand what it is, to feel yourself do something, to remember doing all those awful things, and yet to not hold the keys to the car - to not be in control of your own actions, your thoughts and your feelings is utter hell.

“Can we kiss?” she asks.

The question surprises Clint, but gets off his knees just in time for Natasha to pull him into a kiss.

Kissing isn’t always on the table for them. Years ago that they confessed a mutual lack of sexual attraction. Oh, what an awkward conversation that had been! It had changed his life though. Clint had known he was asexual first, long before he met Natasha, and when he told her about asexuality, the woman he loved had broken into the most delighted grin.

“You don’t want sex from me?” she had asked, choked up. “Or... or from anyone?”

Clint shook his head at that. “No,” he whispered. “I’ve never felt that way, you know. Not going to say I didn’t pretend, of course, or sleep with people to try to change the way I felt, cause I totally did. I don’t feel sexual attraction. I’m asexual.”

She was so young back then, still reeling from her brainwashing and the fact he chose to save her life, to give her a chance at living. He could still remember the way her hair hung in her face when she leaned down, tears in her eyes. He could still remember that smile.

“Do you know why?” she asked then, a breathless whisper. “Did someone hurt you?”

He shook his head no. “I figured it out a few years ago,” he said. “I dated, well, I would almost marry this woman. Our sex life was bad, and Bobbi weaseled how I felt out of me in time. She gave me all the information I needed. Some people just aren’t sexually attracted to anyone. Asexuality. It happens, and there is nothing wrong." 

“I’m not like this because of what they did…” Natasha whispered. She sounded so much like a child then and in many ways she was, denied the normal parts of growing up. “Can you still love someone?”

“Absolutely.”

Now, he and Natasha proved repeatedly that sex was not necessary for a loving relationship. They had been together for six years, quiet about their love. They talked about marriage, but the legally binding was never their style.

Shaking himself back to the present, Clint squeezes her hand lightly. The return squeeze lets him know she will be okay.

“Bucky went down on his knees,” she whispers against his lips, the words raw. Clint holds her hand and then raises it to his lips, leaning back and kissing it lightly. He sits back, and she falls into his lap. “He went down on his knees and just sobbed. He said he didn’t know who he was, and that he held too many memories in his head - the ones that belonged to him, and the ones that didn’t. The poor man… he said he had to get rid of the memories…”

At that, Clint feels an involuntary shudder pass through his own body. He could remember those long nights after they finally released Natasha from SHIELD’s custody, watching, holding her as she broke down in the same way, begging him to take the memories away from her.

He was the only person who saw that side of her. Everyone else, even then, got the poised, composed warrior they knew today. He got the Natasha who was broken. He got the Natasha who had once clawed at her own head, saying the same things Bucky was saying now. “Please,” she had cried. “Please, Clint, take it out. I need it to stop.”

Now, Bucky’s recovery, surely, brought back those memories, ones they would rather cast aside. They both know what it’s like to have their bodies and their minds belong to someone else. It is an unthinkable pain, unlike anything else.

“He looked at Steve and kept whispering, ‘It wasn’t me. I was there. It wasn’t me, but I was there…’”

Clint winces, as those words bring with them their own set of memories. It is nothing like the horrors Natasha had endured, but Loki in his mind... well, that is something he’s never allowed to forget. Before Loki, he had been in bad situations, situations where he had to kill, but the tendrils Loki had twisted in his mind…

His heart leaps into his throat at the memories.

“You never forget it, do you?” Natasha murmurs, as she watches the look in his eyes darken. “You never forget - realizing that you were there and felt it being done, but you didn’t have control. They snatched the control out of your hands.”

“No, I’m never forgetting,” he admits, “and honestly, I don’t know how the hell Bucky’s still alive.”

Natasha nods, her agreement clear in a dark, distant gaze.

He knows the things that are going unspoken between them. Bucky’s trauma isn’t a day, a week, a year, or even a childhood worth of memories. Bucky’s trauma is decades long, time on and off, being erased and brought back and kept in tidy cryogenic storage.

Bucky’s trauma is beyond their minds.

It is devastating and almost impossible to imagine coming out of it whole. His heart hurts at the thought.

“We’re okay,” he murmurs.

“Let’s stay in bed.”

Nobody knew the truth about their relationship, and that has amused Clint for years. For one, few people actually know they’re together. Some people suspect, but nobody really knows. Fury knows. Coulson knew, once. Yet, they’re just private about it. They don’t deny it, and if someone outright asked, Clint would be the first to tell, but it’s quiet.

Theirs is a love too private, too sacred to speak aloud, he supposes.

Few people know Clint is asexual. He’s not even sure that  _ anyone  _ knows Natasha is. He told Bobbi, all those years ago, and he and Bruce had a very interesting conversation about sexuality once upon a time. Clint sometimes wishes he could be more open about it, but he’s not sure how without being strange.

Sex might not be something that happened in their bed, but other things occur there that he loves, entirely. Sleeping with Natasha entails of more physical contact than either of them would dream of with anyone else.

Clint curls an arm around her waist and draws her against him. She had once told him, with a laugh, that if he ever told anyone she was the little spoon, she’d have to kill him. Honestly, it might not have been a joke. He leans against the top of her head, face pressed to her hair, breathing in that scent that is Natasha, earthy and warm.”

“Somehow, he will make it out of this in one piece,” Clint murmurs against her hair. “He’s got Steve, and he’s got all of us behind him, whether he knows it yet.”

“That’s how I survived it,” Natasha replies. She isn’t able to look at him in their position and she likes it that way. Eye contact makes it hard to speak freely, and to let emotions run their course. “That’s how I survived what those bastards did. I knew that someone cared about me, and that he wasn’t planning on letting me go. Eventually, you also showed me that other people cared, too…”

“He will learn, know that it’s okay to…”

“Crash,” Natasha fills in. She then laughs, and he can almost see her rolling her eyes at the way they finish each other’s sentences. “Yeah. Crashing is okay when you’re not alone.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
